Group: (International Library of Group Analysis)

About the Book

`This is an extremely interesting book which succeeds in combining erudition with great clarity, respect of tradition with a refreshing search for new perspectives... It is also a book which sums up the work carried out in Italy and in France and often ignored by the Anglo-Saxon group analyst. In line with such work it links Freud, Bion and Foulkes within a group perspective.'

- from the foreword by Malcolm Pines

Group explores the processes that take place within groups from a psychoanalytical perspective. Combining his own original concepts with a critique of established theories, Claudio Neri describes how groups are formed and develop, and analyses what non-verbal or extra-verbal phenomena are present in human communication, and how they occur in practice. The author uses examples from various art forms from around the world to show the universality of such human communication. Although it deals with difficult new ideas, the book contains user-friendly inserts within the text to explain particular concepts as they arise for those unfamiliar with the subject. A substantial glossary also provides explanation of the many complex terms used thoroughout the book.

Table of Contents:
Preface, Parthenope Bion Talamo. Foreword, Malcolm Pines. Introduction. Historical Notes. PART ONE: ANALYTIC WORK 1. An Overall View. PART TWO: THE GROUP PROCESS 2. The Emerging Group State. The Fraternal Community Stage. 4. The Group's Common Space. 5. Genius Loci. PART THREE: THE FIELD 6. The Field. 7. Self Rrepresentation and Semiosphere. PART FOUR: GROUP THOUGHT 8. Brain Mind. 9. Characteristics of Group Thought. 10. Therapeutic Function of Group Thought. 11. Conditions for Group Thought. 12. Mimesis. 13. Oscillations between Emotions and Thought. PART FIVE: GROUP AND THE INDIVIDUAL 14. The Entry of New Members. 15. Group Experience on the Arrival of New Members. 16. The Group as Self-Object. 17. Effective Narration. 18. Transtemporal Diffusion. Appendix 1. The Group and the Psychological Mass. Appendix 2. The Transformation of the Group into an Institution. Appendix 3. Therapeutics in the Group. Glossary. Bibliography. Index.

About the Author :
Claudio Neri is Professor of `Theory and Technique of Group Dynamics' at the Faculty of Psychology, University of Rome. He is a member with teaching responsibilities of the Italian Psychoanalytic Society and the International Psychoanalytic Association. He is Supervisor of the Group Psychology service at the Centre for Medical Hygiene at the USL `Roma B', part of the Italy's National Health Service. He has been widely published, and is the editor of two professional journals.

Review :
This is an extremely interesting book which succeeds in combining erudition with great clarity, respect of tradition with a refreshing search for new perspectives [...] It is also a book which sums up the work carried out in Italy and in France and often ignored by the Anglo-Saxon group analyst. In line with such work it links Freud, Bion and Foulkes within a group perspective. In this book, Claudio Neri throws new light on group analysis in view of experience and rigorous thought. He is fresh and original without rebelling against Foulksian practice. This is a complex book which will appeal mainly to the experienced. Reading Claudo Neri's book brings us directly inside a work group, a group which we feel represents us and in which we feel involved. The text enables the reader to get in touch with the emotional atmospere of the group, and the unconscious dynamics of its individuals and of the whole group, in all their complexity. Group explores the processes that take place within groups from a psychoanalytic perspective. Combining his own original concepts with a critique of established theories, Claudio Neri describes how groups are formed and develop, and analyzes what non-verbal or extra-verbal phenomena are present in human communication. Although it deals with difficult new ideas the book contains user-friendly inserts within the text to explain concepts as they arise, and also contains a substantial glossary to explain many of the complex terms used in the book. First published in Italian in 1995, Group is no ordinary manual for group facilitiators - at least, not the kind English-speaking practitioners might anticipate … [Neri's] book draws fruitfully on the thinking of Bion and Foulkes, Lewin and Anzieu, and a wide range of Italian, French, German and North and South American analysts. But it is also distinguished by a wealth of references to sources well outside the specialist fields of individual and group analysis: to Virginia Woolf and Walter Benjamin, Isabel Allende and Marshall McLuhan, Montaigne, Durkheim, Sartre, Bunuel, Pasolini, Dostoyevsky, Schonberg, Borges, Cavafy, Canetti, Bakhtin, Wittgenstein ... The book is structured in such a way that the reader can easily cross-reference - there is a fascinating glossary, and there are appendices containing interviews with the author, and textboxes, which usefully take the place of footnotes and provide timely explanations of key concepts as they arise - and this structure captures something both of the sequential nature of the group experience (groups like books unfold over time) and the presence of simultaneous phenomena … This is a book to return to; it invites us not to turn away from its own difficulties and the discomfort these can induce in the reader eager for a too purely intellectual sense. Irrespective of your views regarding psychoanalysis, if you intend working as a professional psychologist in any one of the numerous disciplines of psychology then this book is geared for you ... Neri provides an excellent reference and explanatory text for any discipline that involves working with individuals ... Group allows its readers to explore psychoanalysis from more than the American and British perspective. It opens the door into the world of French and Italian thinking, while encompassing the works of Freud, Bion and Foulkes, not to mention Claudio Neri's own wealth of experience ... Group will outlast many student days and remain an excellent reference well into professional practice: a brilliant read from a brilliant mind.